Payday 3 forms "strike team" focused on making the co-op FPS finally "meet your expectations"

rockpapershotgun.com:

Four months after the troubled launch of Payday 3, developers Starbreeze have announced they've formed a "strike team of veteran developers" with the goal of bringing it "up to where it will meet your expectations". The cooperative heist FPS got off to a right bumpy start when the ever-unpopular decision to only be playable if you're online collided with server issues that saw Starbreeze take the game down for a while. Since then, it has failed to rise above 'Mixed' review rating on Steam, not helped by Starbreeze releasing a £15 DLC pack when many players were unhappy with the game they'd just bought for £35.

"We're well aware that many of you aren't satisfied with the game the way it is in its current state," developers Starbreeze said in yesterday's blog post. "In order to turn your feedback into action, we've put together a strike team of veteran developers from the design, community, communication and production teams with the focus on bringing Payday 3 up to where it will meet your expectations."

Starbreeze say the strike team are "currently creating a plan, deciding what will shape the game into the heisting experience you expect from a Payday sequel in both the short & long term." They expect to share that plan in February, laying out the improvements they'll make and when we should see them in the game.

Starbreeze have previously talked about planning to improve progression systems, a part many have criticised, including our own Payday 3 review. Alice Bee said the game "has some good, complex levels to do your co-op heisting, but the matchmaking and levelling systems make it harder to have fun with other players."

While the plan forms, Starbreeze encourage players to report feedback through their FeatureUpvote page, which lets people submit ideas and bugs as well as vote on others' submissions. Top-voted feedback items there range from big and obvious criticisms such as adding an offline mode to small fun bits like "make it possible to crouch jump inside